


Bookends

by Haven126



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, I mean really, Plothole Fill, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28801593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haven126/pseuds/Haven126
Summary: These are two ‘missing’ scenes from S05:E05, Jack + Kinematics + Safe Cracker + MgKNO3 + GTO.  The first one occurs right after the episode opener.  The second one occurs after the last scene of the episode.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34





	Bookends

**Author's Note:**

> Standard disclaimers apply. I don’t own any of these characters, please don’t sue. Also posted without a beta because I didn’t feel like bugging mine at the beginning of a three day weekend, so gird your eyeballs.
> 
> These are two ‘missing’ scenes from S05:E05, Jack + Kinematics + Safe Cracker + MgKNO3 + GTO. The first one occurs right after the episode opener. The second one occurs after the last scene of the episode.

**Content Warning** : Spoilers for S05:E05 like whoa. Mild tearjerk warning, because spoilers for S05:E05.

-M-

**THE FIRST BOOKEND**

There wasn’t going to be a service.

Jack had been pretty specific. _None of that sittin’ around wearing a necktie noose, listenin’ to people drone on and on about shit they couldn’t be bothered to say to someone in life._ Jack respected that others appreciated the ceremony, the taking of that time to do nothing other than think of the person that had passed on, he just didn’t want it for himself.

Didn’t want to inflict it on others, Mac had realized several years ago. As if skipping the ceremony would skip the hurt.

And so the limousine carrying the body of his overwatch left the hangar and continued on to the funeral home accompanied only by the military honor guard. It was to be moved from the silver travel crate the military had provided to a wooden coffin, Jack had apparently made the arrangements before he’d bailed on the CIA and gone to Afghanistan to finish up his obligations to the US Army. Before he’d met Mac, before he’d re-upped, before DXS and Phoenix.

No one batted an eye when MacGyver inserted himself into that honor guard. He now stood in the back of the funeral home, in the area where the remains of someone’s loved one were handled, coiffed, and prepared for whatever ritual awaited them next. In Jack’s case, it was a simple transfer. Mac took that to mean that the body wasn’t intact enough to be wrapped in Jack’s uniform.

The funeral director gave the honor guard a respectful nod, silently holding out an arm to indicate a waiting area, already prepared for their comfort with refreshments Mac knew some of the men would probably appreciate, since they’d flown straight from Zagreb to Amsterdam to LAX with nothing more than a few five minute bio breaks from duty. He flashed the head of the honor guard, Ray Walker, a tight smile as the man granted the guard permission to temporarily leave the body.

Walker raised his eyebrows, but didn’t budge from his place at Jack’s feet.

“I’m going to stay with him,” Mac added, as if it wasn’t inherently obvious, and the funeral director accepted this, letting himself through a pair of double doors undoubtedly to summon his staff. Walker’s eyebrows lowered, but not in acquiescence.

“You’re going to crack open the box and make sure Jack’s in it,” the enormous man corrected, as soon as the doors were closed. “I assure you, specialist, he is. I put him there myself.”

Mac didn’t even try to play it off. “There’s something I –“

Walker held up a hand, cutting him off mid-sentence. “I know you, Mac,” and his tone was no less somber. “And I know what happened to Alfred Peña.” He abandoned his post at the crate’s feet, marching forward until they were face to face, and Mac refused to fall out of parade rest. “So let me ask you something, son. Seein’ them pull him outta that bombed out hovel, did that help you? Put you at ease? You like rememberin’ his face that way?”

A perfectly valid question, Mac told himself. No reason to lose his cool. “At least I knew that there was no mistake.”

In front of him, Walker sucked down a measured breath. “There’s no mistake.”

Mac met his eyes unflinchingly. “Then there’s no harm in my seeing so for myself, sir.” When it did not appear Walker was moved, he pressed on. “You gave me Dalton Senior’s dogtags, not Jack’s.” He hadn’t needed more than a cursory glance to know that. The stamp pattern on the metal dated back to the forties, and there was an S. where a W. should have been.

“You know he wasn’t wearing his tags,” Walker told him, neither gently nor harshly. “None of us were.”

“That’s my point.” This time Mac wasn’t able to prevent himself from taking a single, small step towards the silver crate. “If he’s –“ He stopped himself from taking another step, from saying the next word. “If identification was difficult-“

“I’m gonna stop you right there, Mac.” Walker was physically standing in front of him, but unexpectedly shifted, taking long strides back to the foot of the crate. There he picked up a compact black canvas duffel, carrying it effortlessly to place it on the hood of the nearby limousine. Mac knew what it was. Jack’s personal effects. The ones not still tied up in evidence, in the investigation.

But the crinkle of thick plastic contradicted him, and a military chain of evidence bag came into view. About fist sized, but the plastic was too folded for Mac to see what was in it.

Walker made things much easier by offering it to him. He didn’t say anything.

There was no point in refusing to move; a few yards meant nothing in the great scheme of the distance between Mac and Jack now, so he woodenly approached the car and accepted it, turning the bag over in his hands. It was a little dirty, there was some small particulate soot and granules in the bag, probably bits of concrete, but the main object –

The main object was a leather wrist cuff. 

Mac found that he wasn’t surprised. He felt the corner of his mouth twitch, and grasped the seam of the bag.

“Don’t,” Walker said suddenly, not quite an order. “A face, you can push that out of your mind. A smell, now, that’s there for good.”

The cuff wasn’t torched, it hadn’t been burned. And the interior leather was dark with years of wear and sweat, not necessarily bloodied. But the marks on the exterior alone told him it was Jack’s. The accidental, deeply etched X two completely unrelated knife fights had left on it, that Jack swore added at least fifty cool points. More importantly, the initials that had been stamped on the inside by the vendor.

“He got this on a mission,” Mac heard his mouth say, as if context was needed. “We’d had to trade his last one to some locals for intel.” That and Beowulf, it had taken him much longer to replace the ring. “What else did you find?”

“Him.” Walker said matter-of-factly. “His civvies and uniform are still processing, but we packed up the stuff he brought with him.” An ebony hand patted the ebony canvas. “Leather jacket, sunglasses, a couple pieces of bling. Nothing that would give him away.”

Mac stared at the leather cuff a long time, then offered it back to Walker unopened, and the soldier accepted it, tucking it back safe and sound in the bag. 

“If you wanna hold onto something, get that smell on you forever, then pick the scent that keeps you going, not the one that tears you down.” Walker zipped up the bag and pressed it into Mac’s hands. “I got him this far, Specialist. I’ll get him the rest of the way.”

Behind them there was the whisper of leather soles on clean-swept concrete - probably the funeral home staff - and Mac hesitated. Walker snapped himself to attention, his eyes never leaving Mac’s, never wavering, and after another beat, Mac accepted the bag and proceeded into the waiting room. He didn’t look back.

-M-

**THE LAST BOOKEND**

“You too, huh?”

Riley glanced up, a little smirk on her lips, as he let himself into the room. “What, the GTO in the parking lot didn’t give it away?”

“Oh, it did,” Mac confirmed, taking in all four corners of the otherwise empty War Room. “Just wasn’t sure you’d gotten the same summons. Muscle car’s a good look on you, by the way.”

The smirk bloomed into a small but genuine smile, then it went tremulous as it caught up with whatever Riley was thinking. “Pretty sure he was riding shotgun this morning.”

“I’m sure he was,” Mac proceeded to help himself to a couple paperclips. “A badass woman in a beautiful car. Two of Jack’s favorite things.”

Riley decided not to reply, and Mac decided that was completely okay as the metal of two paperclips began folding themselves in his hands. “Any idea what this is about?”

The hiss of leather on microfiber, the creak of upholstery yielding. “Nope.” She lightly popped the ‘p’ on the end.

He gave a little scoff. “Yeah, me neither.” Though he was honestly a little surprised the room was empty, since he was pretty sure he was right on time. “She’s watching us, isn’t she.”

His partner in crime heaved a little sigh. “Oh, I think that’s a pretty good bet.”

Though he didn’t give her any kind of signal, nor did he receive one, after a couple beats Mac turned inquiringly towards the glass wall behind him, noting that Riley had just as casually chosen the same moment to do the same thing. Matty was one hundred percent unimpressed with their choreography. She did, however, continue down the hall and into the room.

She also smoked the glass as she deliberately shut the door behind her.

Mac took a measured breath.

“Relax, you two, this is an informal check-in,” Matty interrupted immediately, and true to those words, she actually seated herself on the edge of the coffee table in front of Riley. Mac accepted the cue and grabbed the other half of the couch.

“How are you two holding up?”

Since Matty’s eyes were on Riley, Mac decided to let her answer first, and the strained but small smile reappeared. “Mission ready, boss. Just point me at the bad guys.”

Whatever Matty thought of that, her dark eyes cut to Mac without blinking, and he found himself unconsciously straightening a little. “Same,” he assured her quickly, palming the half-bent paperclips. “What’s up?”

Webber’s brows furrowed in affected confusion. “I’m pretty sure the only two things I said were, this is an informal check in, and how are you holding up.” When he and presumably Riley just blinked at her, Matty rolled her eyes. “I’m not worried about your mission readiness. You’ve both had a few days now to process things, so tell me how that’s going.”

Beside him, Riley tucked a leg under herself, making a show of getting comfy. “Well, it is not as easy to find an mp3 to eight-track converter as you’d imagine. I’ve got two old recorders coming in and a line on a few blank cartridges, so that’ll be my Friday night.” When their boss continued to simply stare at her, Riley fidgeted uncomfortably, and her eyes turned towards the clouded glass wall. “He’s not coming back,” she added, in a much quieter voice, and her nostrils flared. “So the only thing we can do is keep going.”

Matty slowly nodded. “You’re right,” she told her, in close to the same soft tone. “And we will.” She laid a gentle hand on Riley’s folded knee, giving her a reassuring squeeze and ducking her head to force Riley to meet her eyes. It took Riley a few breaths to find the strength to do it. 

And it was hard not to share her pain as he watched Riley’s jaw clench, fighting so hard to keep it together. Belatedly it registered to Mac that he was also in _physical_ pain, and he carefully unwrapped his fingers from the twisted metal in his hands. As always, an impeccable model of the state of his mind. “Actually, there is one thing I don’t understand.”

Matty let him be their distraction. “Just one, Blondie?”

He gave her a half-smile, only because he knew she expected it. “This all started because Jack received an anonymous image of Kovac. Vitez was operating in the clear, there was no reason to attract his attention. Why . . .?” He trailed off, and Matty and Riley were quiet, letting him think. “Why send it?” he finally asked, almost plaintively. “I thought – maybe my dad had,” and he couldn’t help the flash of irritation he felt, maybe with James, maybe himself, for both thinking it and realizing it was one of the more plausible explanations, “- to get Jack . . . away from me, make room for himself somehow . . .”

Matty’s expression gave nothing away. “James was many things, Mac, and you’re right, jealous was one of them.” Mac felt his head rear back a little at that, and Riley also straightened, staring at their boss. She didn’t seem to think she’d said anything extraordinary. “And yes, he didn’t mind grandstanding. But do you really think your father would have spun up a multinational, global special forces unit to hunt down a dead man, all to make himself some space in your world?”

_Should we ask Mason_? almost tumbled out of his mouth, but the second the thought crossed his mind he actually twitched his head to get rid of it. “. . . let’s just say I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Matty was quiet a moment, and when she spoke, it was with a frown. “Mac, he was never that blatant, and certainly never that blatant with you. You already resented him enough, even Jim wasn’t _that_ blind.” She shifted, her disappointment clear. “Besides, knowing what you know now, does that make any sense to you? He deep fakes an image of Kovac to get Jack and _seven other people_ yanked out of their lives, and then whoops, a building explodes and nearly a hundred people die and it turns out Kovac really is alive after all?”

. . . no. Not when she laid it out like that. And if James had actually known Kovac – or more accurately, Vitez – was acutally active, there was no way he’d let the terrorist operate for over a year. Mac briefly dropped his eyes. “If not him, then who? If Vitez had a traitor in her midst, why wouldn’t they have made contact when they succeeded in getting his attention?”

Why wouldn’t they have outed Vitez to Jack as soon as his team was close.

“ . . . that image was a fake,” Riley started, haltingly. “I mean, it was a person, probably an actor. Jack said he shot that Kovac himself and I-I can’t imagine Jack not being right about that.” She glanced between them uneasily. “The image that was texted to Jack was stock footage of that same person, but from a defunct website. And I was never able to figure out where that message came from, it was a digital dead end. The only person who would have still had the photo, let alone would have known to send it to Jack was Vitez, Mac’s right, but . . .”

Digital dead end.

“. . . you mean a digital dead end like all the other leads on Kovac we found in Zagreb?”

Riley’s eyes had never left his, and she started nodding, slowly at first but then like she meant it. “Yeah, I mean like that,” she confirmed, her tone stronger. “But he got the picture _before_ the terror activity picked back up. Why would she go after Jack and the rest of the unit, after all this time? What, she wanted to put on a show? Some kind of revenge?” But even as she said it, Mac could tell she didn’t believe it. “She said her only ideology was money, and they weren’t stopping her from making it. She could have just-“ and Riley gave a jerky wave of her hand.

Just gotten revenge the old fashioned way, and hunted them down. They never would have known she was even there.

“Maybe she didn’t know where they were,” Mac reasoned aloud, but then shook his head. “But she had access to all of Interpol’s anti-terrorism resources. It’s hard to believe she wouldn’t be able to find them another way. I mean, clearly she had Jack’s cell number.”

“She was testing him,” Matty told them quietly, and as soon as she said it, Mac knew she was absolutely right. “The previous Kovac activity was traceable, that’s how Jack’s unit shut down Kovac the first time. Vitez laid low for a few years, got herself a new group and some new digital toys, but she couldn’t be sure she’d covered all her bases. What better way to test than using the men who ran her to ground the first time.”

She’d set it up from start to finish. Give her security a run for its money, and maybe get some revenge while she was at it.

“Well, it wasn’t good enough. Jack saw through it anyway,” Riley noted, her voice suddenly strained again. “A few more days and-“

And he would have figured it out himself.

“It would explain a few things.” Matty frowned at something none of them could see. “And he must have suspected that for a while. It was why he wasn’t at the funeral, for starters, why he didn’t come back after we took down Codex.” Her eyes cut instantly back to Riley. “Why he went dark so often – even from me.” 

She never asked a question, but Riley nodded anyway. “Me too,” she admitted. “I . . . never thought to look for his old CIA aliases. I thought he’d – loop us in, if it got bad.”

But Mac found that the least surprising thing about it. “He couldn’t risk showing whoever was pulling the strings how important you were to him – how important we all were.” And in the end none of it had mattered. All those sacrifices had been for nothing. All the things he’d told Tibor, told Vitez – “He never knew Vitez had known all along,” Mac continued hollowly. “We wasted so many opportunities . . . I could have been there, _we_ could have been there-“

“No,” Matty growled. “No you don’t, Mac. Jack didn’t have all the pieces. This was _never_ going to go down any other way. What Vitez called him - _čuvar stada_?”

But Mac was shaking his head. “Matty-“

“ _No_ , Mac,” she repeated flatly, holding up a hand to shut him up. “Cowboy. Guardian. I can’t think of two more perfect words to describe Jack Dalton. He was always going to do this his way, and he was always going to stand between you two and Kovac. It probably _killed_ him to write that postcard, to set up that safehouse knowing what he was going to drag us into if he ran out of time.”

_Ever since Afghanistan it feels like I been playing with house money . . ._

“He didn’t run out of time. And the postcard didn’t kill him - Vitez did,” Mac corrected her, unsure why his voice almost wobbled. “This is what he wanted to tell me and we just couldn’t seem to –“ He didn’t have Jack’s new burner in his contacts, so the unknown number had gotten snagged by his phone’s Do Not Disturb function. He called back as soon as he’d listened to the voicemail the next morning, but Jack hadn’t picked up – maybe he’d been in the room with Vitez, or one of his unit, and couldn’t risk it.

“Vitez was never going to let us in on this,” Matty told him, her voice still hard, and a little frustrated, like she couldn’t understand why he wasn’t following. “If Jack had tried to bring us in last week, she would have killed _all_ of you in that ambush, and I’d be left with –“ She cut herself off, and Mac was stunned to hear her smother her own wobble. “With five graves to decorate instead of one.”

He wanted to deny that, but even a basic analysis revealed she was probably right. There would have been no bringing them in without Vitez knowing about it, because none of them knew they were hiding from all of Interpol. And there was no way in hell Mac wouldn’t have gone into that ambush, right beside Jack.

But there was one thing that didn’t add up, and Mac gave her a strange look. “Five? You . . . don’t think Russ likes decorations?”

Their boss’s mouth twisted up in disgust. “I have no idea where Russ Taylor wants to be buried and I don’t care. If it were up to me, it would be an unmarked ravine in Romania.” Even Riley managed a little chuckle at that; Russ would be beside himself to hear that. And they all knew she didn’t mean it.

But the humor had done exactly what it was supposed to, and Mac took a deeper breath, wondering why it felt like he hadn’t in a while. “I’d like to think that Vitez wouldn’t have gotten _all_ of us-“

“Well, Jack made sure.” This time it didn’t sound quite so much like she was cutting him off. “And you did a hell of a job, by the way,” and she reached out again to touch Riley’s knee. “I received confirmation this morning that the case is airtight. Interpol’s already received five extradition requests from countries that were targets of Kovac’s. Not only did you expose her, you confirmed rumors that large corporations and internal government agencies were involved with each attack, which has breathed new life into dozens of investigations across Europe and Asia. Her men are already turning on her for plea deals.”

“Don’t give them any.” Mac blinked at the venom dripping from Riley’s voice. “I will dig up whatever evidence is needed. I want every single one of those fuckers in a forever hole.”

Mac watched Matty cock her head to the side; apparently that was a new one on her, as well. “. . . I’ll let Interpol know about your offer.”

“I can let them know myself,” she half-growled, starting to reach into her back pocket for her phone before Matty’s hand on her knee tapped firmly.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but I may need you on a few other things. When you’re ready.”

Riley huffed, but let it go, and sent Mac a side-eye that he returned. Permission or not, they were absolutely in sync on this topic. No plea deals. Not for a single one of those bastards.

And if Matty saw it, she decided to be the bigger person. “Speaking of deals, there’s no evidence that Tibor actually betrayed Jack, so the government has decided to honor the deal Dalton offered him. He’s now a Phoenix asset. We’re setting him up in Italy. Once he gets comfy, I’d like the four of you to make sure he’s behaving himself.”

“It would be our pleasure,” Mac assured her, and Riley gave their boss a wolfish smile. Maybe he truly hadn’t betrayed Jack, and Jack had given him intelligence he needed a human to pass to Mac, indicating that Jack did trust him – as much as a person like Tibor _could_ be trusted. It might be nice, to hear about what Jack had gotten up to in Zagreb.

At the very least, Mac could be sure Tibor had given Jack the gift of entertainment. Maybe taken a little edge off the loneliness, and for that, he was grateful.

“In the meantime, however, if you two truly feel you’re ready to come back-“

“Oh please yes,” Riley groaned, and Matty gave her a bright – and dangerous smile.

“Careful what you wish for.”

Thirty-seven hours later, Mac trudged into the dark front hallway of his house. He dropped his go-bag at the door, giving it a weary kick but still alert enough to listen for the lock to catch before he tossed his keys in the general direction of the plate the polar bear was holding. One trek to the fridge later, he plopped heavily onto his sofa, not bothering with a light, and twisted the cap off first one bottle of beer, then a second. He tucked one of them into the seam between himself and the middle couch cushion and held the other to his forehead a moment, letting the coolness ease the ache there.

Then he sucked in a deep, slow breath, catching just a hint of gunpowder and aftershave.

Three hours later, the rising sun found him in the same spot, sleeping peacefully, one empty beer bottle and one full one still tucked in between the couch cushions. There was no one else there, just a throw blanket he hadn’t bothered to grab, and a broken-in leather jacket draped casually over the back of the couch.

FIN

-M-

In case you couldn’t tell, the content of the last episode didn’t bug me nearly as much as the sloppy writing. I know Eads left the show with little warning and they had to make _something_ up, but this solution gave zero explanation for why Jack ever would have gotten that text. And I know that Jack would have wanted Mac to have Dalton Sr’s dogtags, in the hope Dalton Sr. would watch over Mac just like Dalton, Jack Wyatt would be. It was nice that someone remembered Dalton Sr’s dog tags, but it was a _weird_ way to hand them over. Why not both sets of tags, with both names showing, Jack S and Jack W?

I’m actually relieved they tied up this plot point, because pretending Jack didn’t exist was driving me crazy, and this was actually one of the better explanations of why Jack wasn’t there for all the crap that hit the fan in the last two seasons. I hope this little tinkering with the plotholes makes them a little more believable. Why Mac actually believed that Jack was dead. Why Mac and Riley assumed someone else had sent the postcard two days after Jack died, instead of assuming Jack himself had survived to send it. Why Jack Sr’s dogtags were there but Jack Jr’s were not. And why the hell Jack got that stupid text to begin with.


End file.
